A trio of agriculture industry groups has made it their mission to stop an initiative from reintroducing gray wolves into the Colorado landscape.
Colorado Farm Bureau (CFB), Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, and Colorado Wool Growers Association have banded together to form Coloradans Protecting Wildlife, an issue committee against a proposed 2020 ballot measure to introduce wolves into Colorado.
“This is the kind of question that should be answered by science, not politics,” Shawn Martini, CFB vice president of advocacy, told WLJ.
Martini said the Colorado Restore Gray Wolf Population Initiative, commonly referred to as Initiative 107, does not ask what the science says but instead asks voters to make the decision for themselves.
“In the past, the wolf has not been introduced precisely because wildlife biologists have found that it is not an appropriate place to try and introduce that species, and have opted instead to do it in other states—ones with lower populations and larger wildland areas,” Martini said.
The initiative
Initiative 107 would charge the state of Colorado with developing a plan to restore the gray wolf by “using the best scientific data possible” as well as public input and assisting livestock owners in wolf conflict or compensation for losses. If passed next November, the initiative compels the state to begin reintroduction by the end of 2023.
The final petition was approved for circulation on June 21, 2019, and supporters have until Dec. 13 to collect enough signatures to put the question on the November 2020 ballot. In order to make an appearance on the ballot, 124,632 valid signatures must be collected in support of the initiative.
As of Oct. 27, 2019, the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund reported having collected around 170,000 signatures already, and the group planned to collect more to ensure enough valid signatures.
The group is leading the campaign in support of the initiative.
“Western Colorado is nearly equidistant from wolf populations in the Northern Rockies, southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona,” the organization stated. “Therefore, when we succeed in safely restoring wolves to their home in western Colorado, we will have closed the missing link and restored the gray wolf’s historical range from the High Arctic to Mexico.”
However, opponents such as Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Chief Conservation Officer Blake Henning say a forced introduction of wolves to Colorado would cost taxpayers, redirect already limited wildlife management resources, and negatively impact the state’s economy.
“In Colorado, you are dealing with about a third of the land mass of the Northern Rockies’ states but almost double the human population,” Henning said. “A forced reintroduction would trigger the potential for real issues in the state.”
Impact on agriculture
Martini said although the initiative mentions compensation for livestock producers, “We know that similar compensation schemes in other states never do an adequate job of making the ranchers who have been negatively impacted by wolves whole again.”
Martini addressed the value of a breeding animal, and the loss in not just an individual animal but its future progeny as well. In addition, he noted the difficulties in proving a wolf depredation.
“It’s all downsides for the ranching population in the states that currently have wolf populations,” Martini said. “We don’t want any part of that in Colorado.”
In addition to negative impacts on livestock, Martini addressed how ongoing wildlife conservation would be impacted.
“Ranchers do a lot to provide habitat and conserve existing wildlife measures in the state,” he said. “To throw an apex predator into an environment where science and ecology has told us it’s not appropriate to do so, puts all of that at risk.”
Martini stressed the importance of putting the question of wolf reintroduction into scientists’ hands.
“The science done by Colorado Parks and Recreation and Fish and Wildlife has ‘thwarted’ [those pushing for wolf introduction], so they are bypassing the science and instead taking it to voters, hoping that emotional message will help them get what they want, and be damned with the consequences.” — Anna Miller, WLJ editor
